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Nationals Get Their Man With 77 Seconds to Spare

Little has gone right since baseball returned to the nation’s capital in 2005, after a 34-year absence. The Washington Nationals had a .500 record in their first season after moving from Montreal but have been an abject failure since, finishing either last or second-to-last in the National League East each year. They’ll finish last again this year, unless they somehow make up 12 games on the Mets.

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Now that Stephen Strasburg has his big deal, there is absolutely, positively no way he could miss. Just ask Mark Prior.

But Stephen Strasburg, the much-hyped right-hander, has finally signed with the Nats, putting his signature on a record-setting, four-year, $15.1-million contract only 77 seconds before midnight. If Strasburg hadn’t signed by then, he would have re-entered the draft next year. Instead of cursing Strasburg and hard-nosed agent Scott Boras this morning, Nats fans can hope better days are coming.

The pressure on Strasburg is enormous. He went 13-1 with a 1.32 ERA and 195 strikeouts in 109 innings at San Diego State last season. Oh, and he threw a no-hitter, too. “Stephen Strasburg needs to be Ken Griffey Jr. He cannot fail,” Jeff Passan writes at Yahoo Sports. “Good is unacceptable. Anything short of transcendence and he’s just another mistake on the Washington Nationals’ log that, this year alone, reads like the Dead Franchise Scrolls.”

Strasburg has little time to show Washington fans anything this year, but Sports Illustrated’s Ted Keith cautions against rushing him. “Only two pitchers to go No. 1, David Clyde and Ben McDonald, debuted the same year they were drafted,” Keith writes. “Clyde was just 18 when he struck out eight in five innings to win his first game for the Rangers in 1973, but went just 4-8 that year and was out of the majors by 1979. McDonald was 21 and had been a college star at LSU when he was promoted to the majors as a September call-up in 1989. Pitching in relief, he posted an 8.59 ERA and never did fulfill his promise, retiring after the 1997 season with a 78-70 record and 3.91 ERA. Not surprisingly, neither pitcher demonstrated that he was ready for the majors at such a young age.”

Fox Sports’s Ken Rosenthal says the Nationals weren’t the only winners. “The deal could be a huge win for baseball, too — if the players and owners finally come to their senses and agree to fix the way that the game distributes amateur talent. The current labor agreement does not expire until 2011. One management official predicts the method of securing amateurs will be the ‘single biggest issue’ in the next round of negotiations. It should be,” Rosenthal writes. “On one hand, Boras’ claims about what Strasburg would have commanded on the open market were irrelevant. U.S. collegians do not start their careers as free agents. In every sport, they are subject to a draft. Yet, Boras also had a point: The problem with baseball’s system — one problem, anyway — is that international amateurs are free agents. Thus, the price for Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman, a much heralded left-hander, could far exceed that of Strasburg, a right-hander from San Diego State.”

* * *

Quarterback Michael Vick appeared contrite on “60 Minutes” Sunday night when he discussed his role in an illegal dogfighting operation that landed him in prison for almost two years and bankrupted him. He also blogged an apology. Vick has been conditionally reinstated to the NFL, signing with the Philadelphia Eagles last week.

The interview with James Brown was taped before Vick signed with Philadelphia, leading John Smallwood of the Daily News to plead that Vick speak with the media. “Right now, Vick’s image is about as low as it can get,” Smallwood writes. “He was convicted and served time for actions that has made him the poster boy for animal cruelty. Some are demonizing him as being less than human. Through all of this, Vick and the Eagles are trying to convince the public, some of which is extremely skeptical, that he is contrite, has learned from his punishment and deserves a chance at redemption. It’s hard to do that if Vick is perceived as being afraid to face the music.”

* * *

Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos’s first-round TKO of Gina Carano in San Jose over the weekend didn’t impress AOL’s David Whitley. He doesn’t think the bout will bring women’s mixed martial arts into the mainstream. “I can’t rationally argue women shouldn’t be allowed to beat themselves bloody,” Whitley writes. “It’s more an emotional repulsion that makes me hope these breakthroughs are overblown. On a practical level, I doubt the Carano vs. Cyborg was the fighting equivalent of the 19th Amendment. When it comes to female fighters, the MMA still has less depth than Paris Hilton.”

* * *

Plenty of men get second chances to coach, but not so often in European soccer if they’re black. That’s why Tuesday night’s match between John Barnes’s Tranmere Rovers and Paul Ince’s MK Dons is worth noting. Both managers of these teams in England’s third-tier League One are black. But the Independent’s Ian Herbert finds it’s a real struggle for blacks to get managerial posts.

* * *

Benny Distefano had a pretty nondescript career in the majors, batting only .228 with seven home runs and 42 RBIs in parts of five seasons. But 20 years ago today, Distefano was the last left-handed catcher to play in a major-league game. In the New York Times, Alan Schwarz investigates why left-throwing catchers are extinct in the majors.

– Tip of the Fix cap to reader Kaley Hoffman.

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Comments (1 of 1)

Carano vs. Cyborg wasn't a bad fight. Carano almost got out of that round, tough stoppage for her because even though she took a beating, she had better conditioning and cardio than Cyborg, so her gameplan was to survive early and take over late. Cyborg did what she had to do, brought a pace Gina'd never had to deal with before and finished the fight in the first round. Tough blow to women's MMA though because nobody's going to pay to see Cyborg. Carano's sex appeal was a huge draw and created interest, and her talent and ability would then impress those interested viewers enough to want to come back for more. She was also a great role model to encourage young women to take up the sport and help it grow in North America. Nobody wants to see a beautiful woman like Carano get beaten up by a more masculine looking amazon like Cyborg. I don't know of any other women out there that pose any sort of threat to Cyborg on a pound 4 pound level, so without much depth in women's MMA in general and no serious contenders to Cyborg evident for the near future the future of women's MMA definatly looks much dimmer today than it did prior to Saturday Night.

The most relevant fight on the card Gegard Mousasi's destruction of Babalu Sobral at 205. Mousasi's yet to taste defeat and has gotta be considered one of the best 205 pound fighters in the world. Strikeforce not only have Fedor who's likely the top heavyweight fighter in the world, but with Mousasi it's quite possible they have the best 205 pound fighter in the world as well. I'd love to see Mousasi fight Machida or Anderson Silva at 205. Even Nick Diaz while probably no match for GSP at 170, is quite possibly the most legitmate welterweight and biggest challenge left out there that St. Pierre hasn't beaten yet. They don't have a middleweight or lightweight that are going to challenge Silva or Penn, but in three divisions Strikeforce now have guys who can lay claim to being either the best fighter in the division or at least the top contender to the guys who wear those title's in the UFC.

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